Significance of Setting in The Dead by James Joyce - Essay Example

?In ‘The Dead’, James Joyce depicts the emotions and feelings of the character through the physical setting and the environement. Of all the things that could be thematic of ‘The Dead’ by James Joyce, perhaps one would be the impact of physical attributes in invoking the emotions of a person. The physical environment plays an important role in affecting the psyche of a person. One can always take refuge in his physical surroundings and camouflage his emotions or can merge in mirth. The setting of ‘The Dead’ plays an important role in the story and acts like a character on its own just like that of Gabriel Conroy. The description of the atmosphere of the story is so vivid in every step of the development of the plot that it fuels the mind of the reader and creates a detailed image. The Dubliners is one of the finest collection of short stories by James Joyce, who is considered to be the master of prose, when some go on to compare him next to only William Shakespeare and John Milton. He characteristically wrote about Dublin in all his works; almost all his stories, characters etc. were based in Dublin. Joyce understood the significance of the physical space in prose and would be very descriptive about them. Not just ‘The Dead’ but in all the other stories of Dubliner one can find paragraphs written just about the physical background or the setting of events in a story. ‘The Dead’ which happens to be the longest short story in Dubliners is often termed as a novella owing to its length of more than 15000 words in which most of the words have been spent on describing the physical world. Firstly, I will discuss the various settings in the novella and the effect it has on the mind of the reader or on the character as depicted by Joyce. There are chiefly, two episodes in the story – The Party and The Supper being the first one and the second one being The Revelation obviously. The method adopted by me is that of free indirect discourse while stating the point of views of the various characters in the story. I’d also try to discuss the theme of the story through a reader-response criticism approach. The significance of the physical setting in the story is brought about by imagery which shall permeate this thesis throughout. Right from the inception of the story, Joyce beautifully describes the humble habitat of the ‘Three Graces of Dublin’. How the spinster sisters had after the death of their brother Pat, thirty years ago, left the house in Stony Batter and taken their only niece, Mary Jane, to live with them in the upper floor of the dark crude house on Usher’s Island, which they had rented from a corn-factor (Joyce 88). The ‘Three Graces of Dublin’ believed in a cosseted existence and would often throw parties in which they’d invite their friends and relatives for some merry-making. Even though the house was gaunt and dark, the ladies had converted it into a pleasure-dome suited to their tastes. The upper-floor of the house where the ladies lived was brimming with excitement on the day of the story. The aunts had turned their bathroom into a ladies dressing-room (Joyce 88) and their living room had been half-turned into a dance-floor while the other half housed the supper tables along with a sideboard containing cutlery (Joyce 92). The ladies were into music and dance, while Aunt Kate and Mary Jane taught piano, Aunt Julia was a singer himself. Nonetheless, a closed square piano was kept on one side of the room for providing entertainment to the guests (Joyce 92). Joyce rhetorically writes how the hood of the square piano was closed and it served the purpose of a sideboard for viands and sweets. This description tells us that the ladies lived in a small house with just enough space for the three of them but nevertheless were given to throwing parties and made the most of their living there. They were content with their living and the guests too didn’t complain of the paucity of space or comfort in any kind. Joyce further describes the walls and the floors of the room meticulously. (Joyce 94) Through the character of Gabriel, who is irritated by the beeswax under the heavy chandelier and amused by the paintings on the wall which draws his mother’s memory to him, Joyce describes the feeling of boredom and apathy that Gabriel felt for the people around him. It is amazing how often one feels disgusted of the presence of one’s kith and kin triggered by the atmosphere around. The mind plays folly and suddenly the loved ones seem so foolish and repulsive. While for one moment Gabriel is squeamish of the pampered existence of his aunts and his cousin, in the other one he’s nostalgic about his mother – all by just viewing the paintings in the wall and the music by Mary Jane, which are nothing but physical entities. I began my thesis by averring that people take camouflage in objects when they are emotional; an example of the afore-mentioned claim can be when Aunt Julia can’t get enough of the plaudits after she has sung a song and shyly hides herself behind the music-stand which contained the old leather-bound song book with her initials on the cover (Joyce 98). Another example would be when Gabriel left Mrs. Malins to retire into the embrasure in the window. He pensively looks out from the window and longs to be there out in the snow. It is strange to think how one could not enjoy the warmth and company of people in a party and long to walk out in the snow and cold. It only tells you that Gabriel was weary of the uncouth and facetious throng of the party and wanted to get away from there. Especially, after a verbal tiff with Miss Ivors, he is sullen and uncomfortable and wishes to amble out in the snow than be at the supper table with his adversary (Joyce 97). Joyce beautifully describes how one can never find peace of mind in situations like these when one jests about his principles and outlook. Gabriel had to face jibes twice from girls which were not matched to his qualification and precisely the reason why he couldn’t comeback to them. Joyce describes how Gabriel’s mood takes a dive because he kept brooding and festering over the remarks of Lily and Miss Ivors. He decides to alter his speech and express his disapproval of the ways of the young in his speech during the supper. The supper was another important event of ‘The Dead’. Joyce is amply verbose in describing the supper table with all its delicacies. He describes beautifully the various recipes and the eating habits of the diners (Joyce 100). Once again the reader is led to believe that the characters in the story believed in high-living. Until this point in the story, Joyce has richly described the lives of the elite in Dublin during the beginning of the 20th century. How the gentry were obsessed about their dinners and vacations and get-togethers and how oblivious they were to other class of people living at that time, say the corn-factor who lived downstairs. Also, till this point in the story one does not get an inkling of why would James Joyce give this story a title of ‘The Dead’ in place of ‘The highly thoughtful Mr. Conroy’; except when Mrs. Conroy shows a change in behavior after listening to the song by Mr. D’Arcy. She’s not by herself and turns unusually quiet and the reader gets triggered with curiosity that a revelation is imminent in the lines to come which has got something to do with dead people or death, esp. a reader of the current generation is bound to think likewise. After, his speech during the dinner Gabriel has a mood-uplift and he feels very happy. While his wife is thrilled by the song which makes her nostalgic and suffused with emotion, Gabriel misinterprets the lines of her body to be that of wifely carriage and devotion, and is all of a sudden affectionate of his wife, so much so that he founds love permeating him from head and toe and he feels young again and is reminded of his honeymoon. (Joyce 107-108) Throughout their traipse to get the cab, Gabriel dwells in his new found feeling which had lay buried in his heart for a long time. Despite the cold and the dark, Gabriel’s heart was lit with joy and passionate love. Even in the cart-ride his mind keeps flitting back to the thoughts of his beautiful loving wife and he was so joyous that at the end of the ride he tipped the cab-drive (Joyce 111). Joyce went on to describe that by the time, they had crossed the hotel threshold Gabriel’s feelings for his wife had transformed into lust and he was looking forward to make love to his wife. Gabriel was in such an elevated state of mind that he didn’t care to think what was going on his wife’s mind, who had grown silent ever since listening to that song. At last when he couldn’t contain himself and couldn’t tolerate the diffidence beyond that point, when his vibes didn’t match to the frigidity of his wife and the setting too turned tenebrous in that hotel room, he intervened his pensive wife and initiated a small talk (Joyce 111-112). He played around with words and in the light of the lamps from the street he looked at his wife’s visage and tried to measure her feelings. Joyce was careful in choosing the setting for the revelation which follows in this episode. The room is just enough lit by the streetlamps so as to bare the looks of Mr. and Mrs. Conroy when they grasp the truth that can change their lives from that point onwards, yet it is dark enough for them to hide their true feelings. As Gabriel later ponders if Gretta was really truthful in all that she said or were there still many chapters to the story. He looks at different objects lying on the room – the dangling string of his wife’s petticoat, the fallen unfastened upper of his galoshes as he tries to get a grip over himself and the flood of emotions that he has experienced since the evening (Joyce 116). The description of the petticoat and galoshes is immaterial for the common reader but only a wise man can understand how trivial objects serve to focus our thoughts and help us unwound our minds of its cares and emotions. It is looking through these petty objects that Gabriel comes to terms with his feelings for his wife and understands the lesson that this world is shared equally by the living and the dead and his own life was merely a figment of the living world. He was moved with the realization and reflecting on the snowflakes depositing on the windowsill, he thought that the time had come for him to travel in his own country of Ireland and how the snow indiscriminately falls upon everything, living or dead. If it were not for the descriptive setting of ‘The Dead’, James Joyce would not have another successful specimen of prose in his repertoire. He adjusted the volume of the description according to the mood of the story. It can be seen that while he richly delineated the supper setting, he was painfully terse in the hotel room setting. While the former implied the fact that happiness is immeasurable, the latter setting served to remind us of the pangs of broken love and grief. ‘The Dead’ shall always serve to be an example of characterization of physical setting and its significant role in prose. Works Cited 1. "Dubliners by James Joyce - Free EBook." ManyBooks.net - Ad-free EBooks for Your IPad, Kindle, or EBook Reader. Web. 06 Dec. 2011. . 2. Joyce, James, and Daniel R. Schwarz. The Dead: Complete, Authoritative Text with Biographical and Historical Contexts, Critical History, and Essays from Five Contemporary Critical Perspectives. Boston: Bedford of St. Martin's, 1994. Print Read More